Galapagos Land Iguana

by Venetia Featherstone-Witty

Title

Galapagos Land Iguana

Artist

Venetia Featherstone-Witty

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

From my recent visit to the Charles Darwin research station on Santa Cruz island, Galapagos. The Galapagos land iguana, Conolophus subcristatus, is a species of lizard in the family Iguanidae. It is one of three species of the genus Conolophus. It is endemic to the Galápagos Islands, primarily the islands of Fernandina, Isabela, Santa Cruz, North Seymour, Baltra, and South Plaza.Charles Darwin described the Galapagos land iguana as "ugly animals, of a yellowish orange beneath, and of a brownish-red colour above: from their low facial angle they have a singularly stupid appearance."

The Galapagos land iguana grows to a length of three to five feet with a body weight of up to twenty-five pounds, depending upon which island they are from.Being cold-blooded, they absorb heat from the sun by basking on volcanic rock, and at night sleep in burrows to conserve their body heat. These iguanas also enjoy a symbiotic relationship with birds; the birds remove parasites and ticks, providing relief to the iguanas and food for the birds.

Land iguanas are primarily herbivorous; however, some individuals have shown that they are opportunistic carnivores supplementing their diet with insects, centipedes and carrion. Because fresh water is scarce on the islands it inhabits, the Galapagos land iguana obtains the majority of its moisture from the prickly-pear cactus that makes up 80% of its diet: fruit, flowers, pads, and even spines. During the rainy season it will drink from available standing pools of water and feast on yellow flowers of the genus Portulaca.
It is estimated that the Galapagos land iguana has a 50 to 60-year lifespan.

Beginning in the early 1990s, the Galapagos land iguana has been the subject of an active reintroduction campaign on Baltra Island. These animals became extinct on Baltra by 1954, allegedly wiped out by soldiers stationed there who shot the iguanas for amusement. However, in the early 1930s, William Randolph Hearst had translocated a population of land iguanas from Baltra to North Seymour Island, a smaller island just a few hundred metres north of Baltra because he could not understand why no iguanas were present there. Hearst's translocated iguanas survived, and became the breeding stock for the Charles Darwin Research Station captive breeding program that has successfully reintroduced the species to Baltra and a number of other areas.
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April 17th, 2017

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